In January 2017, the Russian River flooded its banks. Ryan Kunde, my son-in-law who is a winemaker and drone enthusiast, flew his 3DR Solo drone above a stretch of the Russian River and shared this video with me. The drone provides a beautiful view of the brown river, which runs through a forest of redwoods and oaks in Northern California.

The video highlights our curiosity with nature and seeing it from new angles. Through these flying platforms, we’ve watched a new form of content develop over just a few short years — from Eric Cheng’s early surfing videos in Santa Cruz and volcano exploration in Iceland, to Space X rocket launches, to a wide variety of amateur and professional content shared at many film festivals, we’re seeing things we’ve never been able to access before.

You may recognize this as the location for where we tested our drones for our Drone Guide and filmed all of our reviews.